Sunday, January 15, 2012

Vegetable Soup Stock

For years now I have been making my own vegetable soup stock. It's so easy. The best part is, I make it out of scraps that other people just toss. The only cost involved is the gas for cooking and the water for cooking it. FAR cheaper than buying a mix, or prepared soup stock. Far healthier, too!

Here's what I do: I save all the scraps from my vegetables (don't save beet scraps, cabbage scraps, or potato scraps for this though) - like onion, garlic, carrot peels, celery bits, even fennel... I fill up a gallon size container in my freezer. When it's full, I fill my stock pot and simmer away. Then the trick is storing it. I know some people can it (canning is way beyond my home ec. skills), others freeze. I'm a freezer fan. Sometimes I freeze it in small (pint) containers, and sometimes I freeze it in ice cube trays and then pop those out and store in a large container... That way is great for adding a little stock to sauces, the pint containers are perfect for enriching soup...

hmm... i don't think i would save cauliflower scraps - they are a member of the cabbage family and may give too strong a flavor to the stock. (although you can always experiment and see if you like it)i would chop those herbs and freeze them like you suggested, although i have also successfully frozen them spread out on a cookie tray, and then when frozen, stored in a freezer bag, and then just pour out the necessary amount...good luck!

I've been wary of making veggie stock because my veggie scraps are often the parts of the vegetables that I throw away in the course of checking for bugs (especially with onions and fennel). Do you know anything about this?

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